


No Cause For Alarm

by zigostia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Sherlock Being Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28305999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zigostia/pseuds/zigostia
Summary: There was something up with Sherlock.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 68





	No Cause For Alarm

John woke up to the fire alarm.

This wasn’t a very surprising thing. He’d woken up to the fire alarm approximately twice a month. It had gotten to the point where, upon hearing the shrill chirping of the overhead speakers, the initial flight-or-fight response that had been drilled into him from years of training was slowly sanded away, and now when he woke up to the fire alarm, he simply stared at the ceiling and wondered, once again, how morally unsound it would be to wrench the bloody thing off the plaster and toss it at his flatmate’s dark curly head.

(At least it was better than the carbon monoxide alarm, he thought, which had a slightly-better hit count at around once every three months.)

He got out of bed, rubbing his eyes, subconsciously tuning out the ever-present shriek overhead as he meandered his way out the door. There wasn’t even smoke in the halls, so Sherlock had most likely just set the toaster on fire again. Or the microwave. Christ, he hoped it wasn’t the microwave: they’d already replaced it a fortnight ago.

By the time he padded down the stairs, the ringing had finally stopped, and he was greeted with the view of the kitchen: unobscured, undestroyed. Except for Sherlock, who was inexplicably standing right in front of the sink, hands empty and eyes trained on the ceiling above, where he was glaring at the fire alarm as if it had done him a personal injustice.

“Morning,” John mumbled, reaching for the toaster to pop in two slices of bread (thank god, it was intact).

“Remind me again why we need these idiotic things?” Sherlock said, dismissing John’s greeting like a pesky insect.

John took it in stride, gently pushing past Sherlock to get to the kettle, their shoulders bumping together. “In case, by some _completely_ impossible chance, one of your ridiculously-dangerous experiments self-combusts in the middle of the night.”

“That _is_ ridiculous,” Sherlock scoffed. “My experiments are perfectly controlled.”

John raised his eyebrows at the teabag he was currently dunking up and down in his mug of hot water. “Tell that to the Erlenmeyer Flask you exploded last night.”

“You distracted me!”

“Oh, what, with my _breathing?”_

“My concentration is a very delicate thing.”

John snorted. “Okay, princess,” he said, and walked into the living room to sit down at the coffee table, ignoring Sherlock’s affronted noise.

“So what was it this time?” John called out from his seat. “Another experiment of yours gone wrong?”

“My experiments don’t _go wrong.”_

John rolled his eyes so hard they hurt, and hoped it projected all the way across the room and was received by Sherlock. “What was it, then?”

“Eggs,” Sherlock said.

John slowly pursed his lips. He let his cup of tea rest back onto the coaster on the table (the coaster that, by the way, was apparently utterly invisible to Sherlock judging from the teastains that ringed the wood. When John had called Sherlock out on this, apparently _he_ had also turned utterly invisible as well, because no matter how many coasters he pointedly stacked on the table, Sherlock would completely disregard them. It was infuriating. One of these days John was going to frisbee one of those coasters straight at his neck).

“You burned _eggs?”_ he said, very carefully.

“Yes,” was Sherlock’s reply.

John sighed. “Sherlock, what did you do this time?”

“I told you,” Sherlock said, rounding the corner. A lick of hair had sprung up, unbidden, right over his left ear. John’s fingers twitched. “I burned some eggs.”

John stared at Sherlock for a long time, and then said, “Okay,” very softly. 

He didn’t bring it up again.

-+-+-+-

John woke up to the fire alarm.

This time, he grabbed the pillow he wasn’t currently lying on, thrust it into his face, and groaned into the silky, lemon-smelling fabric.

“Sherlock,” he muttered like a four-letter word, and threw aside his blankets to clomp down the stairs.

Sherlock was standing, yet again, at the kitchen. Yet again at the sink. This time, he was carrying a mug. 

“Hello, John,” Sherlock said, when John didn’t greet him like usual.

“What did you do this time?” John said irritatingly.

Calmly, Sherlock took a sip from the mug. Goddamn, that smelled—really good. Sherlock was a surprisingly-good cook, turns out, and that extended to various baked goods and drink concoctions, apparently. The hot chocolate inside the mug looked rich and shiny and creamy and smelled like heaven with marshmallows on top and John was _not_ going to get distracted by a cup of hot chocolate.

“What did you do, Sherlock?” John repeated, firmer this time.

Sherlock turned around and regarded John with a steely stare. John, refusing to back off, lifted his chin—cursing his height—and stared right back.

“Toast,” Sherlock said this time.

John resisted the urge to yell. “Toast,” he said.

“That’s what I said.” 

John pursed his lips and reminded himself that homicide was illegal in this country. “You don’t even eat toast,” he said through gritted teeth. (He didn’t eat eggs, either, he wanted to add, and even if you did you never burned them because you like them goopy in the middles and nice and runny, so what the hell was going on?)

“Well,” Sherlock said curtly, coldly, “maybe I _wanted_ toast today.”

“Oh, did you now?” John said coolly right back, slick as hail on a windshield. “What brought this special occasion on?”

Sherlock’s eyes took on that strange distant quality that was slightly unnerving, the one that meant he was quickly flicking through his mind catalogue in search of a term.

“Eggnog Day!” 

“What?”

Sherlock snapped his fingers. “Oh, and Christmas Eve.”

“You decided to have eggs and toast for breakfast because it’s Christmas Eve,” John recited.

“Precisely.” Sherlock smiled, as insincere as a mannequin. 

John gave up. “Okay, then,” he said, and went into the living room.

-+-+-+-

John woke up to the fire alarm. 

He had an extremely-alarming thought for an instant that perhaps he was going through some sort of twisted Groundhog Day, and then he checked his phone and saw that it was Christmas Day, and he flopped a hand over his face and kicked the covers off of his body.

Downstairs, Sherlock was, once again, standing in the middle of the kitchen, standing right in front of the sink—

Actually, this time he wasn’t.

John’s steps slowed at the halls at the empty kitchen. The toaster was unplugged, the burners were off and cold, and there wasn’t a single soul in sight.

“Sherlock,” he called out, tentatively. Nothing.

John’s gaze sidled across the kitchen tiles, danced up the walls, and landed on the fire alarm.

He should respect Sherlock’s privacy. He should understand that every man had his secrets, and that John, as Sherlock’s—well—he was supposed to know that, anyway, and he was supposed to smile and nod and turn a blind eye respectfully. That was a key aspect in all relationships: trust and respect for personal space and privacy and John _knew_ that and he wasn’t going to break it, and he hadn’t, not even when the fire alarm went off three consecutive days leading up to _Christmas_ of all days, not even when Sherlock had been acting jittery and odd and overall strange for all those days as well. Maybe Sherlock was experimenting with the fire alarms again. Maybe he was trying to reprogram them so that they automatically turned out every time Mycroft entered the building again.

But why would he keep it a secret from John, then?

(Maybe he was using again, the thought flitted like an arrow streaking across his mind, and it sliced him with cold fear.)

John stood, and agonized, for so long his feet began to turn cold from standing on the tiles.

“Eggs,” he murmured derisively. “Eggs and _toast._ Bullshit. Bugger this.”

He dragged the ladder over from their closet and propped it up against the stove.

He took a deep, decisive breath, and then climbed the ladder until he was standing on the third rung. He extended a hand, outreached, that hovered over the fire alarm for one second before grasping it and twisting until it clattered off the ceiling.

He brought it close to his chest; turned it around. The screw to the battery compartment was ever-so-slightly loose.

Holding his breath, he pinched the screw with his thumb and index, and gently, gently, heart pounding in his ears, twisted it off. 

He popped open the compartment. There were no batteries inside.

Instead, nestled into the grooves, there was something small, silver, and shiny.

John’s fingers trembled as they reached in and took out a ring.

“Shit,” he breathed out.

Behind him, someone cleared his throat.

John whirled around so quickly he lost his footing on the rung. For a second the air whooshed in his ears and the ground rushed up to greet him—and then strong arms wrapped around his waist and hoisted him back into place.

John was suddenly very dizzy. He sat down on the topmost rung and stared at Sherlock.

“Good morning, John,” Sherlock said. He was—smiling?

“Sherlock,” John said, and the _Oh fuck I fucked up_ suddenly rushed into his mind like a flash flood. “Sherlock, oh god, Sherlock, love, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I thought you were hiding something _bad—”_ His words died down when Sherlock didn’t seem angry, or interrupt with a barrage of curse words and cutting insults, or pull out a gun and shoot him off the ladder. “Sherlock? Are you alright?”

“I’m perfect,” Sherlock said, and reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black box.

“Sherlock,” John said. It seemed like he’d forgotten how to say anything else.

“These trousers cost over fifty pounds,” Sherlock proclaimed, opening the lid of the box to reveal an identical small, silver, shiny ring. “There is no chance I am kneeling.” 

John was glad he was sitting down on the top of the ladder, because his knees would’ve given out otherwise. He tightened his hand on the ring in his hand so that he didn’t accidentally drop it, because right now it had just become the singular most important thing in his life. “No, really?”

Sherlock stepped closer. Still smiling. “Really.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Sherlock,” John said. “I’m going to murder you.”

“That can wait,” Sherlock said. “First, will you marry me?”

“You bloody idiot,” John said, “Yes, of course I’ll marry you.”

Sherlock’s eyes shone as he grabbed John’s hand. Lightly stroking his knuckles, Sherlock bent his head down to brush a kiss to the back of John's hand, and then slipped on the ring.

“How did you know my size?” John said.

Sherlock gave John the baleful look that meant _Stupid question._ He extended his own hand until John, with fingers that were still just slightly shaking, pushed the matching ring onto Sherlock’s slender finger. Satisfied, Sherlock then laced their left hands together, the familiar feeling sending waves of comfort through them both.

“It was hardly a difficult estimate,” he said.

“Oh, come here,” John said, and dragged Sherlock in with their interlocked hands to kiss him, hard and rough and giddy.

“Happy Christmas,” Sherlock murmured against their parted lips.

“I can’t believe you hid a ring in the fire alarm,” John murmured back.

“Don’t worry,” Sherlock said, “I made sure it wouldn’t give you americium radiation poisoning.”

John stilled. “Comforting,” he finally settled on (tacking on a note to take off the ring and sanitize the ever-living shit out of it before putting it back on for the holiday party tonight and—oh, _god,_ Scotland Yard was going to go positively _insane.)_ “But, really, the fire alarm?”

“Well, how else was I supposed to get the height right? I’m so much taller than you.”

John shut him up with another kiss. He felt Sherlock’s arms come around him, wind across his back and gently tug, pulling him off the ladder until they were both standing on solid ground, still kissing, kissing, John didn’t think he ever wanted it to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> At the risk of sounding terribly sappy, Sherlock was my first true fandom, and I fell hard and fast. This is the fourth year in a row I'm posting a Christmas Johnlock fic, which is honestly kind of hard to believe—I still remember writing the _first_ one, lol. So much has changed since then, but John and Sherlock still hold such a special place in my heart.
> 
> A very merry Christmas to those who celebrate it, and happy holidays to everyone. Wherever you are, whomever you are, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a lovely day. Cheers and best wishes <333


End file.
